“You still on my planet, pal?” the bartender asked.
“Huh?”
“Seems like something besides my skill at pouring a drink has your attention.”
“Yeah,” he said, looking back at Franci. “I think maybe I know one of them,” he said, tilting his head toward the table of women.
“How’s your drink?”
“I’m good,” Sean said, his eyes uncontrollably drawn to the woman across the room.
The women had a second order of frothy coffees. There was a lot more laughing, talking, rummaging through the gifts, and they were oblivious to anything else happening in that bar. They certainly weren’t trolling for guys. They never even glanced toward the bar.
If she looked his way, even once, he’d have to think of something clever to say. He’d have to smile, walk confidently across the room to their table, say hello and get friendly. He’d have to make them laugh and like him, because he couldn’t let her get out of here without finding out where she lived. She might be visiting one of those women, which meant that after she left, she’d be totally gone again. He couldn’t let that happen. He needed to see her, talk to her. Touch her. Hold her.
“Why don’t you go over there? Say hello?” the bartender asked.
He looked up at his new friend. “Yeah…well…The last time we talked, I wasn’t her favorite person.”
The bartender laughed. “Hard to imagine,” he said.
Sean had been staring at that table of women for a long time and the bartender was probably watching that, in case he turned out to be some kind of pervert. Sean turned on the charm; he cheered up real fast so he didn’t look so intense. “Hey, I should settle up and get going, even if the scenery in here is incredible.” He put some money on the bar, including a nice tip, and left without finishing his drink. He walked out with his head down, trying not to attract any attention.
It was colder than usual on the coast this October night. He wandered across the street, where he could keep an eye on the front door. He hoped they quit the bar before he froze to death. It made him sick to think she might get away from him.
He made up his mind and it took him less than fifteen seconds to decide—he really needed to see if he could get things straightened out with Franci. They should be together. He just hoped she would see it that way.
He actually said a prayer. There had to be a patron saint to ignorant, immature playboys, right? Saint Hugh? Saint Don Juan? Whomever…give me a break here and I’ll change my ways. I swear. I won’t be overconfident; I’ll be sensitive. We’ll negotiate and get back to what we had before…And then it happened. The four women came out the front door of the restaurant, one of them toting her presents. They lingered, laughed some more, hugged and then they went their separate ways. Two went left, two went right. At the end of the block, Franci and her friend went in opposite directions, and Sean, feeling as if this was the one chance in his lifetime, hotfooted it after her.
He had just about caught up to her when she was unlocking the door of a small silver sedan. “Franci?” he called out.
She jumped, turned and stared at him, wide-eyed.
“It is you,” he said, taking a few steps nearer to her. “Your hair—wow. Threw me off for a minute.”
She looked almost frightened at first. But then she seemed to compose herself, though she shivered from the cold and pulled her coat tighter around her. “Sean?”
“Yeah,” he said, laughing. “I can’t believe I’m running into you here, of all places.”
“What are you doing here?” she asked, not looking thrilled to see him.
“Remember Luke? Remember, I told you we bought some old cabins together a long time ago? Long before I met you. Well, he got out of the army and came up here to work on ’em.”
“Here?” she asked, aghast. She pulled her coat tighter. “Those cabins are here?”
“Back in the mountains, along the Virgin River,” he said. “I was just burning some leave, visiting him. I came over here for dinner.”
She looked around. “Where’s Luke?” she asked. “Is he with you?”
“No.” He laughed. “Married. Recently married. I try to get out of their hair in the evening because they…” He stopped and laughed silently, shaking his head. Then he looked at her face. “You look great. How long have you been here? In Arcata?”
“I, ah, I don’t actually live in Arcata. I was just meeting some friends for dinner. Everything all right with you? With your family?”
“Everyone is good,” he said. He took another step toward her. “Franci, let me buy you a cup of coffee. Let’s catch up a little.”
“Ah…No, I don’t think so, Sean,” she said, shaking her head. “I’d better get—”
“I looked for you,” he said impulsively. “To say it was a mistake, the way we broke up. We should talk. There might be things we can work out that we were both too stubborn to—”
“Listen, don’t even go there, Sean. It’s all in the past. No hard feelings,” she said. “So good luck and good—”
“Are you married or something?” he asked.
She was startled. “No. But I’m not looking to go back to the discussion that ended us. Maybe you were able to just blow it off, but I—”
“I didn’t blow it off, Franci,” he said. “I looked for you and couldn’t find you anywhere. That’s why I want to talk.”
“Well, I don’t,” she said. She opened her car door. “I think you’ve probably said enough on that subject.”
“Franci, what the fuck?” he asked, confused and a little angry by her immediate rebuff. “God, can’t we have a conversation? We were together for two years! It was good, me and you. We never had anyone else, either one of us, and—”
“And you said it wasn’t going any further.” She stiffened her back. “In fact, that was one of the nicer things you said. I’m glad you’re doing fine—you look just the same, happy as can be. Say hello to your mother and brothers. And really, don’t push this. We decided. We’re over.”
“Come on. I don’t believe you mean that,” he said.
“Believe it,” she shot back. “You made a decision—you didn’t want a commitment to me. And here you are—you don’t have one. Bye. Take care.”
She got in her car and slammed the door. He took two giant steps forward and heard the door locks click into place. She backed out of her parking space quickly and drove away. He memorized the license number, but the most important thing he noticed was that it was a California plate. She might not live in Arcata, but she lived close enough to drive over for dinner.
Now that he’d seen her, he knew what he’d long suspected. He was far from over her.
Franci’s hands trembled so much, she found it hard to drive. She always knew there was a chance she would bump into him someday, though she carefully avoided the most obvious places where that could happen. But she had never, never expected him to want to talk about it, to talk about them!
And when she thought of the months she had prayed for that talk to happen, it caused her vision to blur with gathering tears. Angry tears! She pursed her lips and thought, No! She’d cried enough over him; he wouldn’t get the benefit of one more tear.
Franci left Phoenix after their breakup and went home to Santa Rosa to work as a civilian nurse in a hospital. She had lived with her mother. Almost a year later, she got a good job that fed her addiction to adrenaline—a flight nurse position with a helicopter transport unit. Less demanding work hours, good benefits, more opportunities—but it meant a move. Because she had her bachelor of science in nursing, she was able to teach a couple of courses at Humboldt U in Arcata, perhaps building a future in academia.
Her mom, a family-medicine physician’s assistant, had been ready for a change. Vivian found a position in a family-medicine clinic in Eureka. An excellent position. Vivian’s hours were more demanding—full-time, in fact. So the two of them moved north together, closer to Vivian’s job than Franci’s, and twice a week, Franci drove over the mountains to Redding to pull a twenty-four-hour shift as a flight nurse. Most of her flights were routine patient transport via helicopter—getting a heart or C-section patient out of a small-town hospital to a larger facility where special surgery could be performed. But occasionally she was on board for an emergency—victims of a wildfire, car accidents in isolated parts of the mountain terrain, injuries requiring emergency surgery. She had loved in-flight nursing in the air force and had missed it. This new job fit the bill. She bought a cute little house on the outskirts of Eureka in the kind of quiet, lovely neighborhood she most enjoyed and, until tonight, she thought her life was nearly perfect.
Looked for her, had he? Not very hard. Once six months had passed, she thought she’d come to terms with the fact that they were not meant to be. They wanted different things from life; he wanted to play and have fun till he was a grizzled old man and she wanted to put down roots and grow a family.
What wasn’t fair about it was that she’d been attracted to the very thing that seemed to prevent him from wanting to settle down. He was handsome and daring and reckless, as good at snow and water skiing as he was at snuggling up on the couch to watch a movie. Of course, it was one chick flick to every five action-adventures, but that was okay with Franci—she liked action herself. She thought their relationship could exist within a marriage just as easily as it did outside marriage. Half the couples they had camped and traveled and played with were married with kids. Kids didn’t bother Sean; he seemed to like them. But he was adamant; he didn’t need any official contract to show how he felt and he wasn’t interested in being tied down by the needs of children.
The fifteen-minute drive south to Eureka from Arcata hadn’t been enough to settle Franci’s nerves, so she drove around town another fifteen minutes before heading to her little neighborhood. She wanted to be completely composed when she got home. She should have known she had only been kidding herself about being at peace with her decision to leave him. That myth was disproved the second she saw him. God, he still made her heart race. One look at his face and she felt the blood surge through her veins; she could feel the heat on her cheeks. She couldn’t have a cup of coffee with him. She’d probably lunge across the table at Starbucks and tear his clothes off his body. She would have to be strong. Firm. Get herself bolstered and ready; she was weak. She might hate him, but she still loved him. And he still turned her on. All that meant he could hurt her again.
She finally parked in her little one-and-a-half-car garage, pulled down the door and walked into the house and through the kitchen. She could hear the TV in the living room and there she found her mother, sleeping while sitting up, and her daughter, Rosie, curled up on the couch beside her. The only one who looked up when she walked into the room was Harry, their blond-and-white cocker spaniel.
“Hi, Harry,” she said.
He wagged a couple of times and rolled over on his back, just in case anyone wanted to rub his belly.
“Mom?” she said, giving her mother a little jostle. “Mom? I’m home.”
Vivian stirred and straightened. “Hm, hi. I must have dozed off.” She stretched. “Did you have fun?”
“Sure. Those girls are always fun. I’ll catch you up on the gossip tomorrow after you’ve had a good night’s sleep.”
Vivian stood. “Let me put Rosie—”
“I’ll take her to bed, Mom,” Franci said. “Tucking her in is the best part of the day. How long has she been asleep?”
“She probably stayed awake longer than I did,” Vivian said with a laugh. She gave Franci a pat on one cheek and a kiss on the other. “Day off tomorrow. Call when you’re up. We’ll have coffee or something.”